Israel deliberately targeted the biological environment in the Gaza Strip, causing severe damage to the infrastructure of water, sewage, solid and liquid waste, and soil, as well as air and noise pollution, which contributed to the spread of epidemics and left the people to face death due to the environmental disaster, a human rights group said.

Israeli forces are deliberately destroying the environmental components in the genocidal war they launched on Gaza on October 7, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a non-governmental human rights organization, said in a report, entitled “Environmental Extermination.”

“Israeli forces are attacking Palestinian civilians, civilian objects and environmental components on a large scale, without regard to the international human rights law and international humanitarian law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians in Time of War,” it said.

It said the water sector, a key component of the environment, has been targeted, in addition to the
systematic destruction of water wells and 180,000 linear meters of water transmission and distribution networks.

About 203 groundwater wells have been put out of service, leading to the spread of skin and respiratory diseases and viral hepatitis, it said, adding that the per capita share of water in the Gaza Strip has dropped to levels insufficient to meet most urgent needs, said the report.

Source: Jordan News Agency